Before we explore the reasons why Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO) matters, we need to understand what it is. In simplest terms, CRO increases the conversion rate of your site or landing page. An element is optimized and the performance of that optimization is measured.
Now that we have an understanding of what CRO is, let us dive into why CRO matters. There are four main reasons I’ll cover below.
Knowing your audience
First of all, your success in any type of marketing campaign comes down to how well you understand your audience, and how well they understand your messaging.
You can use CRO to attract and further segment your audience. Test out different page designs or copy that appeal more to your target market. For example, if there is a higher click-through-rate on one ad versus another ad, you have captured the attention of your audience based on that one successful ad.
Once you’re able to see what’s resonating with your audience, use that opportunity to test and optimize your landing pages now. The testing and optimization will further increase conversion rates and you’re able to better understand your audience and what might appeal to them over the existing content or layout you were utilizing.
Data-influenced decisions
With the amount of money poured into marketing in any business or industry, make sure you’re investing in the right marketing strategy or practice. It can make or break the success of your business.
One reason why CRO matters is that testing anything through the CRO process will return data or an outcome. That data will determine if the element optimized on the page or website was fruitful. By setting up conversion goals, you know the percentage of visitors that reached that goal and the version of the test they were experiencing.
Want a tip? It is best to test one element at a time during a single CRO test. By only testing one element, you will know exactly what works and doesn’t work. Testing too many elements brings up the issue of not knowing which change you can attribute the conversion increase to.
Data is imperative. Using the data from CRO testing helps to support any proposed changes or updates by someone on your team. When you have the data to back up your decisions, you’ll receive buy-in from the team. You will know you did not make an update because you thought it looked better, but because you know this change was successful in your test and it increased conversion rates for you.
Influential to marketing strategies
What’s great about CRO is the transparency it delivers.
By running a CRO test, you have data you can pull from to determine whether that update was successful or not. Using that transparency can be helpful to other areas of your marketing strategy as well. The bottom line is that the CRO process can help us make better decisions in all aspects of our business, based on data rather than opinion.
CRO is important because even if we cannot move over to other marketing channels, we know what will work best for this specific situation and audience. That alone can influence decisions and save time. We often forget is how much time and effort is put into something that cannot be completely measured. With CRO, we get that data back and know the time was worth it.
Return to your business
The final reason why CRO matters is that it has a direct impact to your business. CRO can increase your Return On Investment (ROI) fairly quickly and without costs of other programs. Again, we can attribute increases in leads or purchases from CRO efforts. These increases will correlate with your business goals. Sometimes we may blindly move into implementing a new strategy and the return we needed or wanted may not have been provided.
Also, CRO matters because a marketing strategy may have been implemented and wasn’t as successful as originally thought. We can use CRO strategies to improve performance and optimize what we already have versus starting from scratch. By optimizing on a continual basis and monitoring for conversion rate increases, we are positively impacting the business as a whole.
Get started with CRO today
There may be pushback to implementing CRO into your regular marketing strategy; the idea might be something new to the business. Having a solid plan and strategy for CRO testing will contribute to the four points discussed above. It can be done for lower costs and can influence the rest of your marketing strategy and practices. These four uses highlight why Conversion Rate Optimization is crucial and how it can have that direct, positive impact on your business.
Regardless of where you’re at with your marketing campaigns, CRO has a place. If you’re not already thinking like a conversion optimizer, there is no better time to start than right now. So get out there and start testing! You’ll be amazed at the results you can achieve.
